Excel Links of the Week [Excel Dashboards Edition]

Over the weekend I spent some time to update the Excel Dashboards page. It now features more articles, downloads and resources for those of you making Excel Dashboards. Go ahead and check out the page here and let me know your feedback.

Moving on to this weeks excel and charting links worth checking.

Why gradient fills can be bad for your charts?

Tony and Support Analytics analyzes a chart featured in Baltimore Sun and tells us why it is bad. The chart uses gradient fills along with a non-zero axis start point. This makes the values look different than they are. Tony wastes no time in pointing out the mistake and teaches us an important charting lesson.

Charting when you have lots of data – Unemployment Data Case Study

This is a old one, but I am not sure how I missed it. Jorge shows us how to make charts when you have lots of data. Very effective. Go ahead and read the article, there are few good examples.

VBA Macro to automatically back up excel files

JP at Code for Outlook and Excel blog releases a new version of automatic excel backup macro. The macro silently backups excel files and saves you any trouble in case of you made a mistake and need to backtrack.

Mimicking Slicer feature in Excel 2007 and earlier

In excel 2010, there is a new powerful data analysis feature called Slicers [more on MS site] Andrewe explores this feature and gives us a DIY Excel Slicer workbook for those of us using earlier versions of Excel. It is a fun way to explore data, go ahead and check it out.

Copying Vlookup Formulas – the easy way

Mike at datapig talks about a simple yet very effective formula trick for those of us working on lots of data and using vlookups all the time. He points out that using either COLUMN() or COLUMNS() formulas can help you easily drag the vlookup formulas to get values from other columns as well.

Wish you a happy week ahead.

PS: Do you want to share an excel or charting resource with our community? Tip me at chandoo.d @ gmail.com.